Random thoughts about work and life.

non paying bidders suck

So the winning bidder motorcyclessparker showed up to pick up the car this afternoon. Then asks “how negotiable is the price?” First of all it’s ebay and you put in a bid, but I’ll be nice. I replied “I was hoping to get the winning bid: $3,050.” He looks the car over, gets in and starts it. He continues to let it run while looking around the car.

I let him take it for a test drive. He returns, says “wow, it misses through the gears” referring to the fact that the car runs rough and needs a new distributor. Well no shit! Did you read the post?

The car starts but runs rough. I’ve been told it needs a new Optispark distributor. The car also has an oil leak from the front of the oil pan. The 6-speed manual transmission is strong and works great. The ABS INOP light comes on occasionally, needs a new sensor on the passenger side, but brakes work just fine as I’ve driven it this way for more than 8 years.

So he proceeds to offer me $2,500. I’m annoyed now and tell him “no way, I turned down an offer from a guy on Friday for $2,600. Best I can do is let it go for $2,950 which is the price of the next ebay bidder.” Turns out I was wrong the next ebay bidder was $3,000 and the one before that $2,900, but oh well. Dude then mumbles something about “I didn’t want to put that much money into it.” Should’ve thought about that BEFORE he bid. He continues, “How about $2,750″. To which I replied, “nope, $2,950 is the best I’ll do”. At this point, I’m done. He walks away. Being the nice guy I am I tell him, “, sorry it didn’t work out. It was nice to meet you.” He says, “likewise, I might turn around halfway “. The thought that went through my head was “Yeah right!”

I get in the Trans Am, start it back up, and back it into the garage, then go inside. The guy sits on my driveway for a good bit on the phone and chatting with his father. Probably trying to decide if $2,950 was a good price or not. Then he drives away.

Then, at around 6pm he called my cell phone (which I had left upstairs and missed his calls). He left me a voice message, “Jesus, listen. About half way home I was gonna turn around, but I got a call and had to come home. But I’d come over if you let the car go for $2,950.”

Seriously? You’re kidding right? So he expects me to still honor that price? HA! Yeah right. F*** off dude! If anything, the price goes UP! I haven’t called him back and don’t plan to either. I’ll give him negative feedback on ebay and mark him as a non-paying bidder, then offer the car to the other two buyers. If that doesn’t pan out, I’ll relist it and keep this @$$hole from bidding.

The part that gets my goat is he had a chance to see the car when it was on craigslist. But since he didn’t show up, I put it on ebay. Had he shown up that day, I would’ve let the car go for $2,500, but not now, especially not to him. Well, that’s the risk you take when selling on ebay.